TOP TEN BRANDS AND THEIR MARKET RESEARCH
The Top 10 Brands as per Business Week & Interbrand are as follows:
1. Coca-Cola
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. GE
5. Nokia
6. Toyota
7. Intel
8. McDonalds
9. Disney
10. Mercedes-Benz
Many factors are taken into account when creating the Global Top 100 list. The criteria are as follows :
 To qualify, each brand must derive at least a third of its earnings outside its home country and have publicly available Marketing and Financial data (already eliminating Visa and
Wal-Mart).
 Only the strength of individual brand names, not brand portfolios, are ranked (cutting out
Procter & Gamble).
 Airlines aren't ranked, as schedules and routes' impact on sales can’t be clearly differentiated.
 Pharmaceuticals aren’t ranked as consumers relate more to the products than the actual brand.
 Insurance companies are included this year as they are now differentiating themselves.

Market Research Coca Cola & Mc Donald - Italy
A new market-research survey of teenagers in the United States, Germany, Italy, France and Britain shows that Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the clear teen favorites among international brands, followed closely by Wrigley's
Chewing Gum, Kellogg's and Levi's Jeans. The survey, developed by Global TGI, a worldwide network of marketing research surveys, measures teens and their product consumption, media usage and attitudes. Called
"Western Teens," it is designed to help marketers improve their international marketing activities to the 11 to 19-yearold age group.
The Italy Food & Drink Report has been researched at source, and features latestavailable data covering food, drink and tobacco consumption, expenditure, sales, imports and exports; 5-year industry forecasts through end-2012; company rankings and competitive landscapes covering leading multinational and national food companies; and analysis of latest industry news, trends and regulatory developments in Italy.
5-Year Food and Drink Forecast
Comprising five sections, BMI’s Food & Drink chapter provides analysis of each market’s Food & Drink industry, culminating in a 5-year forecast for the sector. The chapter includes the following elements: Regional Overview, Market Overview, Industry
Developments, Company Developments and a 5-Year Forecast. This section contains a historic data series and forecasts to end- 2011 for key indicators including food consumption, food expenditure (% household spending), canned food sales; canned food sales, value; confectionery sales; confectionery sales, value; coffee sales; tea sales; alcoholic drinks sales ; and soft drinks sales .

Market Research Microsoft – Italy (Italian Market Segment)
Consumer and professional titles
The consumer market is without doubt, the strongest growing segment, due to the increased number of home PCs (31% of Italian families have a desktop PC), while the professional titles segment is still characterized by a small number of producers, controlling
78% of the total market. Legal titles, in particular, continue to be the best selling items, accounting for 76% of total sales, for a value of 162 billion lire (approx. $ 125 million). Professional titles are distributed through direct channels while internet sales are still modest.
Educational software
The ANEE report confirms the peculiarity of the Italian market: newsagents continue to be the most important sales channels for educational products. Thanks to special agreements with software publishers, many newspapers and magazines offer wrapped up software games or encyclopedias at lower costs compared to more traditional sales channels (i.e. bookstores for example) which remain marginal despite all efforts and expectations to the contrary. The titles market price range varies generally from 65 to
78,000 lire while newspapers and magazines offer them at 20,000 lire or less.Piracy still constitutes a significant problem for the industry but the recent measures taken by the
Italian government should improve the situation. Games publishers have recently founded a non profit association, AESVI (Italian Association of Edutainment software publishers) promoted by some of the major multinational companies of the sector with offices in Italy such as Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Infogames, Ubisoft and
Vivendi
Peripherals for videogames
The entertainment software market has seen a radical change since 1995 when Sony introduced its Play Station. Up until then, the PC was the only tool which offered high quality features for games. It is now in the field of peripherals that the most aggressive market battle will be fought over the next few years. In November 2001, Microsoft released Xbox, and Nintendo is about to launch GameCube. According to Idc,
Microsoft’s console in 2002 will sell more than PS2 in Italy for a total of 503,000 pieces against 484,000 PS2s. The sales forecast for GameCube are also very positive: Nintendo expects to sell 321,000 units in 2002.

Market Research: IBM Italia
The original initiative
The original initiative began in 1991and relates to policies focusing on employees’ transition to retirement. This formed part of a broader initiative aimed at increasing IBM Italia’s cost efficiency. Accordingly, the company created satellite companies and outsourced functions to these companies. It also transferred part of its workforce to these companies, taking care not to discriminate on age grounds.
The collaboration between Sernet and IBM Italia proved initially successful. Always with a view to reducing costs, IBM Italia used the satellite company as a retirement incentive for its ageing top managers. Nevertheless, the bond between the companies gradually weakened and ended in 1996. While it lasted, however, IBM Italia sent around 100 older managers to the smaller company, thus reducing its workforce while allowing its former employees to extend their working lives.
Good practice today
As part of a cost-reduction programme in the early 1990s, IBM Italia created several satellite companies to aid part of its workforce in making the transition to retirement. The company guaranteed the satellite companies a market for one to three years, after which they were to become completely autonomous. IBM Italia’s current initiatives are separate from the original initiative. One initiative involves the company’s participation in a project developed by the Harmony Laboratory of the School of Business Management at
Bocconi University in Milan, aimed at managing staff diversity through work on groups vulnerable to discrimination. The company independently decided to participate in the project, although it did inform the trade unions that it was doing so.A 2004 study on company workers aged over 45 years aimed to develop a management approach targeted at its older employees. It addressed the question of whether the company should try to motivate older employees and make the most of their valuable experience, or whether it should address economic criteria only and employ younger workers instead of older workers, as the latter tend to cost more to employ.
Although innovative in the Italian context, this question has increasing relevance for a multinational company like IBM. As a result of several workshops on ‘age as a factor of discrimination: business cultures and stereotypes’, the study was carried out at IBM
Italia. The study ended only recently and the company is still analysing its findings and their implications for its employment policies, especially those that will define its approach to older employees.

Market Research of GE in Italy
Since the GE Money brand migration effort began in 2Q 2004, the transformation to a single global consumer brand has been carefully tracked. Consumer brand awareness, advertising recall, brand imagery and commitment and customer satisfaction are among the metrics being measured through an ongoing brand tracking study.
Early research results for key European countries indicate awareness levels exceeding plans. In one country, a 12-month targeted threshold of 24 percent has been met in just five weeks.
Throughout 2005, the GE Money brand has been launched in Belgium, the Czech
Republic, Finland, Ireland, Italy , Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland as well as parts of Asia and South America. In 2004, the GE Money brand was introduced in Australia,
Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.
The new brand identity in each country has transformed branches, kiosks and headquarters signage. Print and broadcast advertising, publicity, new product rollout and significant employee activities complement the brand launch.The new look of the GE
Money brand is clean, transparent and displayed in a bright, graphic manner. It is simple and optimistic and showcased in consumer literature to communicate the brand values of speed, ease, accessibility, flexibility, trustworthiness and value. In today's banking environment, GE Money's distinctive approach brings greater accessibility to consumers.
The name GE Money is synonymous with the business goal; the ability to say "Yes" to customers. Convenience and flexibility are also important brand attributes for GE Money.
With more than 142,000 retail outlets and 185,000 ATMs, GE Money can be close to customers.
As a part of the focus on the customer, credit and loan applications have been simplified with large print and disclosure boxes. Courteous customer service and prompt attention are hallmarks of the customer focus. "We are delighted with customer reactions to the experience of doing business with GE Money," said David Nissen, President and CEO of
GE Consumer Finance. "We look forward to growing long-term customer relationships and attracting new customers with our unique brand proposition."
GE CONSUMER FINANCE
With more than US$150 billion in assets, GE Consumer Finance, a unit of General
Electric Company, is a leading provider of credit services to consumers, retailers, and auto dealers in 47 countries around the world. GE Consumer Finance, based in Stamford,
Connecticut (USA), offers a range of financial products, including private label credit cards, personal loans, bank cards, auto loans and leases, mortgages, corporate travel and purchasing cards, debt consolidation and home equity loans, and credit insurance.

Market Research of NOKIA in Italy
Nokia and Vodafone Omnitel N.V. in Italy have signed an agreement to upgrade Vodafone Italy's core network for
GSM and WCDMA 3G with Nokia's MSC Server System.
The MSC Server System brings improved efficiency in the core network for the delivery of voice minutes by reducing floor space occupancy and optimizing investments for mobile networks evolution. Vodafone becomes one of the first operators to deploy a 3GPP Release 4 MSC Server Systems in its commercial network. Volume deployments have started following a successful testing period with commercial live GSM and WCDMA traffic.
Nokia is leading the market in the volume availability of 3GPP Release 4 architecture and is the only vendor able to provide full 3GPP Release 4 support for both GSM and
WCDMA 3G.
According to the latest research on smartphone markets from ABI Research, Nokia has maintained its leadership position with a 56.4-percent share of the 70.9 million units shipped in 2006. Nokia sold 40 million smartphones in 2006, compared to 28.5 million in
2005. Motorola also had a strong 2006 and occupied the second position with 8.5-percent market share, driven by the success of its Linux-based devices in China, most notably the
MING. At the same time, Symbian's strong position in the smartphone operating system market is under continued and increasing threat.

Market Research of Toyota in Italy
Toyota, which is likely to overtake GM in global sales this year, improved its numbers in Europe in 2006 by 9.7 percent as it sold 896,831 units. Market share rose to 5.8 percent from 5.4 percent a year earlier. The Japanese carmaker released new versions of the RAV4 sport utility vehicle and the Yaris small car.
Toyota has said that it expects to sell 1.3 million vehicles in Europe by 2008.
Carmakers were helped last year by a 3.8 percent sales increase in Germany, the largest market in the region, as customers moved up their purchases of big-ticket items to avoid the 2007 increase in the value-added tax from 16 percent to 19 percent.
In addition, unemployment in the euro zone fell to a record low in November, while business confidence stayed close to a six-year high last month. "The European market was weak, with the most important developments at the end of the year coming from the gains in Germany because of the pending increase in VAT," said Gian Primo Quagliano, director of research at Promotor International, a market research firm in Bologna, Italy.

Gruppo Eurotech, an Italian company specializing in embedded solutions and computer miniaturizatrion, and Intel, the World's largest producer of chips and world leader in silicon innovation, have signed a memorandum of understanding over several years of technological collaboration.
Under the terms of the agreement - signed during a visit by Pat Gelsinger, Vice President and General Manager on Intel's Digital Enterprise Group - the two companies will work together on the development of HPC (High Performance Computing) systems based on
Intel processors. These systems will address the computing needs of fluid dynamics and aerodynamic analysis, as well as scientific computing.
Eurotech will use Intel's processors for its systems, offering a standards- based architecture which does not require the re-writing of specific software programs. Intel's processors also offer high performance with low power consumption, also making them ideal for extreme use systems.
"Intel is always ready to help companies that stand out for their ability to innovate", said
Luca Romani, Large Account and Healthcare Director of Intel Corporation Italy.
"Eurotech has proved it can compete at an International level with leading edge solutions that aid scientific research. This is the reason why we are pleased to collaborate with them on the development of new projects".

A new market-research survey of teenagers in the United States,
Germany, Italy, France and Britain shows that Coca-Cola and
McDonald's are the clear teen favorites among international brands, followed closely by Wrigley's Chewing Gum, Kellogg's and Levi's Jeans.
The survey, developed by Global TGI, a worldwide network of marketing research surveys, measures teens and their product consumption, media usage and attitudes. Called "Western
Teens," it is designed to help marketers improve their international marketing activities to the 11 to 19-year-old age group.
In July 2003 Altamura bread was recognised by the European Union as a protected regional product after lobbying by Enzo Lavarra, Euro MP for the
Bari area, Rachele Popolizio, the Mayor of Altamura, and Giuseppe Barile, head of the local bakers’ association.
Altamura bread was the first baking product in Europe to be granted a DOP certificate, and is so far the only Italian bread to qualify for the honour. DOP stands for
Denominazione d’Origine Protetta, or denomination of protected origin, the equivalent of
DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata, or denomination of controlled origin), used for wines. DOP products must be specific to a geographic area

Kylion was first launched in May 2004 in Italy and launched later that year in Germany. It was initially launched as a newsstand magazine, but issues 2 and 3 came out as paperback in bookstores. The series was cancelled after issue 3 in August 2005.
From Disney's press release when Kylion was launched in
Italy: "In the distant future, around the year 2600, Colony
6, a spaceship with a pre-established destination, its objective to search for new forms of life, is forced to crash-land on an unknown planet, which causes the premature awakening of its crew. The interstellar journey, which had been programmed to last 30 years, is interrupted after only 16 years, which arrests the team’s physical and cognitive development. Instead of fully grown men and women, we find six teenagers who have to deal with a situation for which they aren’t fully prepared: Tanner, the commander of the spaceship, Mita, the mechanical engineer, Raiden, the military officer, Erin, the navigation assistant, Calliope, the bioanalyst, and Cole, the medical officer."
"The story of Kylion and its crew is a metaphor of pre-adolescence: the ambitions and dreams of the group of kids clash with a world that is different from how they had envisioned it. They will succeed in their mission only if they manage to control their fears and impulses, learning to depend on each other."
The comic properties of Kylion are fully produced by Disney creators, with lots of development and market research done. This is to ensure that there is an audience for the proposed product. Fully fleshing out all the characters, environments, and items in the story allow for an ease of translation between different media.
For example, while WITCH is already in the process of being turned into an animated series (it debuts in January of 2005 on Toon Disney and the Jetix block on ABC Family),

Harris Interactive conducted the online survey between 4 and
12 August 2005, among 6,717 adults aged 16 and over from five European countries: Great Britain (2,080), France
(1,179), Italy (1,181), Spain (1,079) and Germany (1,198).
Data were weighted to be representative of the general population in each country with respect to age, sex, income, education, age, sex, geographic location and propensity to be online.
In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain have a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, while the results in Great Britain have a sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. These online samples were not probability samples.
Currently, new Mercedes-Benz Centers are being developed in the most important cities in Europe and Asia. These brand environments represent the company´s products and philosophy but also strengthens the dialogue with customers and potential buyers. Built according to a uniform architectural concept and specially developed by
DaimlerChrysler, this concept is designed to convey the values of the Mercedes-Benz brand – quality, innovation and fascination – and generate a high recognition value around the world.